poly

Calling Sequence

Arguments

String, the symbolic variable name. If the string have more
than 4 characters only the first 4 are taken into account.

"flag"

string ("roots", "coeff"), default value is
"roots".

Description

If a is a matrix,

p is the characteristic
polynomial i.e. determinant(x*eye()-a), x being
the symbolic variable.

If v is a vector,

poly(v,"x",["roots"]) is the polynomial
with roots the entries of v and
"x" as formal variable. (In this case,
roots and poly are inverse functions). Note
that Infinite roots gives zero highest degree coefficients.

poly(v,"x","coeff") creates the
polynomial with symbol "x" and with coefficients
the entries of v (v(1) is the constant term of the
polynomial). (Here poly and coeff are inverse
functions).